


For Each Broken Mile | A 10.17 Coda

by dtkrushnics



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 03:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3675426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dtkrushnics/pseuds/dtkrushnics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>title taken from "porcelain" by sleeping at last</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Each Broken Mile | A 10.17 Coda

“You took him.” The voice comes unexpectedly, from behind Castiel as he tries to work a half-rotted key through the half-rotted door of his motel room. He turns, tensing his body into a battle stance, but he recognizes a soft vibration of grace and relaxes (slightly).

“Hannah,” he says warily, “we had no – ”

“I knew you would,” Hannah interrupts. His eyebrows draw together, but the corners of his new lips are turning up, up in a way that suggests to Castiel that Hannah has no idea he’s doing it. It’s an exasperated kind of fondness, and it sort of echoes the way Dean looks at Castiel sometimes, so his already flaking walls of defense disintegrate.

“You aren’t angry?”

Hannah gives a quiet huff. “I’m not angry, Castiel. I trust you, however misplaced the rest of the Host may believe that trust to be.” He gestures at the door, albeit hesitantly. “May I come in?”

Castiel acquiesces, shouldering open the shaky pseudo-wooden door for the both of them. He doesn’t need to sleep anymore, but Metatron is mortal now (and still handcuffed downstairs in the backseat of the Continental – but that can wait a few minutes, right?). In any case, Castiel has found showers, even seedy motel showers with lukewarm water and no curtain, to be a personal necessity, angel or not.

Hannah takes a seat on the edge of one bed. Castiel mirrors him, sitting across from him.

“Where does the Host think you are now?” Castiel asks, and Hannah gives the same quiet huff.

“They’re still trying to get those souls back into their proper heavens. No one had quite realized just how many Robert Singers have existed throughout human history,” he answers. “That was your doing as well, I suppose?”

Castiel smiles with some chagrin. “I had some help.”

Hannah leans forward, shaking his head in disbelief. “Castiel, _what_ is happening? First we hear that the witch Rowena’s power is resurfacing, and now you’re taking Metatron, and to do what?”

“We’re going to find my grace,” Castiel tells him quietly.

Hannah inhales sharply, his eyes going wide. “And Metatron – ”

“Metatron knows where it is. He’s going to take me to it.”

“Is it wise to put your faith in that monster?” Hannah asks breathlessly. “He’s – he’s a _liar_ , Castiel, you know that better than anyone.”

Castiel shuts his eyes for a brief moment. “Even if he’s lying, Hannah, he’s – he’s mortal now. I took his grace.”

There’s a minute of terrible, trembling silence. “What?”

“I’ll return his when we find my own. It’s – it’s called leverage.”

Hannah is staring at the fraying ends of his sleeves. “I know how much this means to you, but… he was able to _kill_ Dean Winchester, even though he had the Mark. Even mortal, Metatron is more than capable of hurting you.”

Castiel shakes his head sharply. “Dean is part of the reason I’m doing this. He’s not well, something bad is happening to him. He’s scared. And I… I miss my grace, Hannah. This – what I had to do, what I had to take from other angels to stay alive – I can’t do that anymore. I can feel,” he pauses to take a shaking breath, “I can feel that grace screaming inside of me. All I want to do is cut it out.”

He swallows with some difficulty. The words he wants to say are sticking in his throat, like a dry pill. “I miss being… whole. And once I am, I can help Dean better than I can right now. Right now I’m crippled. And I can only carry Dean once I can stand on my own again.”

Hannah lifts his eyes. There is something dancing in the reflection of the musty yellow lamplight. “Castiel,” he says, and Castiel can hear it, in the inflection, in the shape of his name on Hannah’s lips.

“Castiel,” Hannah repeats, and clutches at Castiel’s hand, “How do you stand it?”

Despite himself, Castiel clutches Hannah’s hand right back. “Stand what?” he whispers, though he knows already what Hannah means.

“The _fire_ ,” Hannah answers. “Doesn’t it frighten you?”

Castiel smiles. “Yes, it does. But being afraid of something doesn’t always mean you have to run from it.”

Hannah’s eyes flutter shut. He is completely still save for the gentle rise and fall of his chest with each breath. “Humanity is a strange thing to feel, Castiel.”

“You’re right. Humanity is a strange thing to feel,” Castiel says. “But love – ” He almost trips over the word, but he doesn’t, he doesn’t, “ – isn’t defined by humanity. I’m an angel. Even when I was human, I was an angel. And I love.”

He remembers Anna; it was years ago but the memories are fresh, the pain fresher. She had fallen for love, for emotions, he recalls. _Angels feel too,_ he’d wanted to tell her. _I felt fear, I felt doubt, I felt companionship, I loved my brothers and sisters._ _And,_ he’d wanted to scream, when obedience had kept his jaw nailed shut, _I love Dean Winchester._

“They told stories about you,” Hannah says suddenly. “During the first civil war, when Raphael broke us apart and turned us on each other. There were whispers. I didn’t know you at the time, of course, but some said you’d gone soft. Fighting on the side of the humans, fighting _for_ them. And the angels wondered what had changed in you. What the humans, what Dean Winchester, had done to you.”

Castiel remembers it well, and bitterly. “And,” he says around an impressive rock in his throat, “what do you think he did to me?”

“I don’t think he changed something in you,” Hannah murmurs. “I think he unlocked something.”

Hannah stands then, and despite the fact that his eyes are damp with emotion, he is smiling (like he knows it’s there, this time). He puts a hand on Castiel’s shoulder, and he leans down to leave a kiss on Castiel’s cheek. “You’re technically a fugitive from Heaven at the moment,” he starts, “but we do get telephone reception there if you want to call.”

Castiel laughs softly at that and stands as well, following Hannah to the door. “I’ll, uh, keep in touch. It was good to see you, Hannah.”

“And you, Castiel.” Hannah says sincerely, and turns and walks, and is gone.

Castiel puts a hand to the doorframe, wrapping strong fingers around the painted pine. It’s dark, but there’s a crisp, clean breeze coming in from the – North? Northeast? (Castiel finds it difficult to tell anymore) – and the stars are out. In the first months after he fell, Castiel would look to the stars in envy, in pain and in despair. But the wind is pushing back his hair and there is hope on the horizon for the first time in what feels like decades and he loves Dean Winchester (it’s not news to him), so he smiles.

He pulls his phone from his pocket and dials a familiar number ( _Memorize it,_ he’d said. _I ain’t gonna be responsible if you drop this in a toilet somewhere and go radio silent, okay?_ ). Dean picks up in that strange, in-between space just before the voicemail message takes the call.

“Yeah, Cas?” His voice sounds grated. Like he’s been gargling with rocks.

“How are you, Dean?” Castiel asks the question, though he knows it’s probably pointless. The armor that Dean wears around himself is simply second nature.

But this time, Dean surprises him. He laughs in a way that suggests there is no humor in him. “Not good, man. Haven’t been good in, hell – years. You?”

Castiel remembers the agreement he’d had with Sam, and promptly throws it out the window. “I think I’m close to finding my grace.”

A pause. “That’s good, Cas,” Dean says, and it almost sounds genuine. “That’s really good. I’m, uh – I’m happy for you.”

“It may provide some answers to the questions we have,” Castiel tells him. For some reason he feels nervous. “Just – hang on, Dean. It isn’t over yet.”

There’s a sound across the line, across the miles between them, like a papery sigh. “Yeah, Cas.”

“Dean, do you remember when we first met?”

“Uh, yeah. Let’s see, uh – there was a barn. I stabbed you, you knocked Bobby out, told me things that changed the course of our lives forever. Just your average Thursday.”

Castiel can’t see it, but Dean is kind of smiling at the memory. Dean can’t see it, but Castiel shakes his head. “I mean in Hell. When I took you from Hell.”

Dean is absolutely silent for one, two, “I remember a lot of light. That was you?”

“Yes.”

“Talk about a downgrade, huh?”

Castiel laughs quietly. He leans against the frame. “I remember it vividly. I remember… endlessly fighting the demons down there – they were scared. Angels hadn’t visited Hell in millennia; they didn’t know who I was, what power I had.” Castiel hadn’t known that demons could be scared. But then, he hadn’t known a lot of things back then.

Dean’s quiet. Castiel can picture him, sitting on his bed, probably, with the door closed. He keeps a lot of doors closed these days. “When I found you, you fought me. You wanted to stay, because you thought it was where you belonged.” He exhales. “I know a little bit about that now.”

“Cas,” Dean says, in a strangled voice, “the things I did there – ”

“Were not your fault,” Castiel interrupts swiftly. “Do you hear me? I saw millions of demons in Hell. I fought them for years. I know them, what they look like, what they are. And you, Dean, even in Hell, even surrounded by that darkness and pain, your soul shone.” _It was beautiful._ “This mark, it doesn’t define you. Even surrounded by this new darkness and this new pain, your soul still shines.”

“How can you tell?” Dean whispers, fumbling with his words. “And how – how can you still believe that? After everything I’ve done?”

Castiel lets the silence supply his answer. Dean hears it, if his slow, steadying breath is anything to measure by.

“Okay,” Dean says. “Cas, when are you coming home?”

“Once I find my grace, I’ll be there,” Castiel tells him. “Goodnight, Dean.”

“Yeah. You too.” Dean pauses, then, “Thanks. I mean it. And, uh… you know. See you.”

Castiel hangs up and tucks the phone back into his pocket. His other hand is still gripping the doorframe. In the room next door, a mother quiets her crying baby. He walks into the parking lot to fetch Metatron from the car.

Overheard, the stars shine on.


End file.
